Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, shakes hands during a stop Thursday at a restaurant in St. Paul, Minn.

MIAMI — A man who authorities said was keeping weapons and military-style gear in his hotel room and car appeared in court Thursday on charges he threatened to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Raymond Hunter Geisel, 22, was arrested by the Secret Service on Saturday in Miami and was ordered held at Miami's downtown detention center without bail Thursday by a federal magistrate.

A Secret Service affidavit charges that Geisel made the threat during a training class for bail bondsmen in Miami in late July. According to someone else in the 48-member class, Geisel allegedly referred to Obama with a racial epithet and continued, "If he gets elected, I'll assassinate him myself."

Obama was most recently in Florida on Aug. 1-2 but did not visit the South Florida area.

Another person in the class quoted Geisel as saying that "he hated George W. Bush and that he wanted to put a bullet in the president's head," according to the Secret Service.

Geisel denied in a written statement to a Secret Service agent that he ever made those threats, and the documents don't indicate that he ever took steps to carry out any assassination. He was charged only with threatening Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, but not for any threat against President Bush.

Geisel's court-appointed attorney declined to comment. The charge of threatening a major candidate for president or vice president carries a maximum prison sentence of five years.

The Obama campaign declined to comment Thursday.

In the interview with a Secret Service agent, Geisel said "if he wanted to kill Sen. Obama he simply would shoot him with a sniper rifle, but then he claimed that he was just joking," according to court documents.

A search of Geisel's 1998 Ford Explorer and hotel room in Miami uncovered a loaded 9mm handgun, knives, dozens of rounds of ammunition including armor-piercing types, body armor, military-style fatigues and a machete. The SUV, which has Maine license plates, was wired with flashing red and yellow emergency lights.

Authorities in Maine said Geisel pleaded guilty to a charge of criminal threatening after a 2007 incident and spent 48 hours in a Bangor jail.

Also Thursday

Republican Sen. John McCain promised to call for a congressional hearing and Justice Department review into the potential loss of some 8,000 jobs in Ohio. DHL Express plans to move its shipping operations out of Wilmington, Ohio. McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, is a lobbyist for the company and its German owner, Deutsche Post World Net.

McCain's campaign said it is returning $50,000 in contributions solicited by Jordanian Mustafa Abu Naba'a, who brought in the donations in March from members of a single extended family in California, the Abdullahs, along with several of their friends.

Obama holds a slight edge nationally over Republican John McCain — 46 percent to 43 percent — among registered voters in the presidential race, according to the latest Gallup Poll daily tracking update.